CITY CARDS HIKED FOR FILNER TRIP

Two administrators had limits increased to $30,000 each to pay for Paris travel

It was at that same news conference that Filner said there was no cost to the city for his trip.

“There’s no cost to the city for my trip,” Filner told reporters at the news conference. He said a nonprofit group “can pay for my trip and food and lodging when I’m involved in the conference or the activity involved. And that’s what happened. So there is no cost to the city for my going there.”

While in France, Filner also visited the city of Lille to discuss the city’s work in the area of climate control and renewable energy. Filner said the government of Lille paid for the travel inside France to and from that city.

Filner’s fiancée, who has since announced the couple’s breakup, accompanied him and paid her own way, Filner said during the news conference.

“She paid for her meals and her lodging and her tickets, and the nonprofit paid for mine,” Filner said at the news conference. “Anything personal,” he said, “I paid for it.”

Filner has previously accepted travel from groups that are part of the National Council of Resistance of Iran. He went to Paris in June 2011 as a member of Congress. He also took a similar trip in June 2007, federal records show.

His 2011 trip cost $6,589 and was paid for by Colorado’s Iranian American Community, a group tied to the Mujahedeen-e-Khalq or MEK, the militant — and largest — arm of the National Council of Resistance of Iran.

The 2007 trip to France, also paid for by Colorado’s Iranian American Community, cost $7,949. The plane ticket in that case was business class.